What a review on freeswan.ca is
Every review, comparison and guide on this site is an editorial assessment. We read what providers and official bodies publish, compare it, and explain what it means for someone in Canada. When a page says a provider has servers in Canada or costs a certain amount, that statement comes from a document we can point to, and the document appears in the page's source list with the date we checked it.
We think this is more useful to you than a score. You can open the same pages we read and reach your own view.
The data we use
Prices
Prices come from each provider's own pricing page. We record the plan, the length of the commitment, the currency the page shows and the date we looked. We do not convert currencies, because the amount you pay depends on your card and the exchange rate on the day. Where a provider shows a renewal price, we report it, because it can differ from the price of the first term.
Servers and locations
Server counts and city lists, including servers in Canada, come from the server lists or location pages that providers publish. These change often. If a provider does not publish a figure, we say so instead of estimating it.
Privacy policies and audits
For privacy, we read the provider's published privacy policy and terms: what it says it collects at sign-up and payment, what it says it records while you are connected, and where the company is established. We mention third-party audits only when the provider has announced them publicly, and we say what the provider says was audited and when. We report what these documents state. We cannot verify a provider's internal practices ourselves, and we say that on review pages where it matters.
Official Canadian guidance
For questions about safety and the law, we rely on Government of Canada sources: the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security, Get Cyber Safe, the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada and travel.gc.ca. When those sources do not answer a question, we say so. Our page Is a VPN legal in Canada? is an example: it reports what the sources say and makes clear what they do not say.
Technical pages
Pages about protocols and open-source software, such as VPN protocols compared, are based on the standards themselves (IETF RFCs published by the RFC Editor) and on the official documentation and websites of the projects concerned, such as WireGuard, strongSwan and Libreswan.
What we do not do
- We do not run our own speed tests. Results depend too much on your connection, the server you pick and the time of day.
- We do not give star ratings or numerical scores. A score hides the reasons, and the reasons are what help you decide.
- We do not publish user reviews or testimonials, because we have no way to check them.
- We do not cover using VPNs to get around content licensing or to hide illegal activity.
When we compare providers, for example on our guide to the best VPNs for Canada, the order reflects how the published facts fit a particular need, such as price, servers in Canada or published audits. Each page explains the reasoning.
How affiliate commissions work
freeswan.ca is paid through affiliate programs. When you click a button that leads to a provider and then buy a subscription, the provider may pay us a commission. The price you pay does not change. Affiliate links go through addresses that start with /go/ and are marked as sponsored, and each page that contains them says so.
Commissions do not decide rankings. We include providers that pay nothing: Mullvad, for instance, is linked directly to its own website, and our Mullvad review follows the same method as our NordVPN review. If a provider with a commission is a poor fit for a need, the page says so.
How often we recheck
VPN prices and server lists change. We recheck prices when we update a page and show the date. Each page carries an "updated" date, and each source in its list carries the date we consulted it. If the date on a price is old, check the provider's pricing page before you pay, which is good practice in any case.
Independence
freeswan.ca is an independent site published by Aigen Digital Marketing SL. It is not connected to the former FreeS/WAN project (1997–2004) or its developers, nor to any VPN provider.
No provider reviews our pages before publication, and none has editorial control over what we write. Brand names appear only to describe the services, and trademarks belong to their owners.
Corrections
If you find a figure that is out of date or a statement that a source does not support, please tell us. Corrections can be sent via the contact address in our legal notice. Include the page and, if you can, the link to the source that shows the correct information. We check it against the source and, if it holds, update the page and its date.
Common questions
Do you test VPN speeds yourselves?
No. Speed depends on your connection, the server and the time of day, so a single test says little about your own results. We describe the protocols and server locations a provider publishes instead.
Can a provider pay to be ranked higher?
No. Commissions are paid when a reader buys after clicking one of our links. They are not paid for placement, and the order on our pages is set from the published data we compare.
How do I report a mistake?
Write to the publisher at the address in our legal notice, with the page and the source that shows the correct information. We check it against the source and update the page and its date.